226 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



AMERICA AND SEISMOLOGICAL RESEARCH 



BY Dr. WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS 



BUT a few years ago, the American naval officer serving his tour of 

 duty upon the European station found in the antiquated vessels 

 in which he was compelled to appear a constant source of mortification. 

 This condition has now passed, and it is the geologist who in his turn 

 is humiliated as the modern European earthquake station is opened 

 for his inspection. A great earthquake upon American home territory 

 has been registered by all first-class seismographs throughout the 

 world, and the records have been collected for comparison and study 

 at central stations. It is the kindest thing to say of the American 

 records that they are a negligible quantity — for measured by modern 

 standards they are — but unfortunately their inclusion in the autograph 

 albums of the California earthquake of 1906 does not allow them to 

 be overlooked. Thus the backwardness of our country in a most im- 

 portant branch of the great science, in which we had perhaps thought 

 ourselves entitled to some respect, is patent to all. 



It will hardly be claimed for us that the United States offers no 

 opportunity for earthquake investigation. In 1811 a devastating 

 quake affected a large area in the central Mississippi Valley, in 1872 

 occurred the great Owens Valley earthquake in Nevada, and in 1887 

 the Sonora earthquake of even greater violence; not to mention the 

 Charleston and the recent California seistus. Lighter shocks have 

 been frequent, and the greatest of earthquake authorities, the Count 

 de Montessus de Ballore, showed some years ago that New England, 

 the St. Lawrence Valley, the central Atlantic coast generally, the 

 central Mississippi Valley, and above all the Pacific coast of the United 

 States, must be regarded as notable earthquake provinces. 



The better to understand our true position, let us consider what 

 has been accomplished in earthquake investigation within the last ten 

 years. First, and most important, the laws of earthquake distribution 

 have been determined, and the relation of earthquakes to topography 

 and geology has given us a new branch of science — seismic geography. 

 This is almost exclusively the work of one man, the Count de Montessus 

 de Ballore, major of artillery in the French army, who has given the 

 better part of his life to this arduous labor. 



From a wholly different direction the problems of earthquakes have 

 been approached through the perfecting of seismometrographs, until 

 they register all great seisms of our planet, however distant. This 



